What We Believe


 

What We Believe

God Exists – as simple as that sounds it’s not a statement that we can assume any longer that the majority of people in our culture today embrace.  We do!

God is Love – without God we would not know what love is because God is love’s very essence, its source and well-spring.  I John 4:8b

God Acts on His Love – God’s love is active!  Because He is love God acts on that love in self-sacrificial ways.

  • God created the world and the human race out of nothing simply with the power of His spoken word so that He could enjoy a relationship with His Creation – not because God needed to, but because God, acting in love, wanted to.
  • When the human race decided to turn its back on God, He refused to ever turn His back on us.  Though we are often faithless, His love compels God always to be faithful to us.
  • Because He loves us so deeply, He gave His most precious and priceless gift – Himself in the form of Jesus – to redeem us from the slave market of our own human folly.  John 3:16

Jesus is the Embodiment of God’s Matchless Love – He is. . .

  • God’s beloved Son who incarnated God’s presence among humanity by

being born supernaturally of a virgin as both fully divine and fully human

living a perfect, sinless life which embodied God’s perfect will for humanity

giving His life as an atoning sacrifice for the sin of the human race - conquering death by rising bodily from the grave by the power of God

  • The Savior of the entire human race who will be acknowledged as such – either by willing and receptive hearts in this life or by the inescapable conclusion that awaits everyone in the life to come – Philippians 2:6-11

We Are Not In This Alone – when Jesus ascended into heaven to return to His rightful place in power and sovereign authority, He did not abandon us.  He gave us a Counselor and Comforter – the Holy Spirit!  He is. . .

  • the continuation of God’s presence among humanity following Jesus’ ascension.
  • the One who empowers every person who has entrusted their life to Christ with the ability to live as Christ lived (bearing the fruit of the Spirit – Galatians 6)
  • the One who endows them with gifts for ministry that the Kingdom of God may continue to grow and flourish (Romans 12 & I Corinthians 12).

The World We Live In Is Not a Perfect Place – even though God created it and called His Creation very good (Genesis 1 & 2), that goodness and beauty became marred as a consequence of humanity’s insistence on running their own show and calling their own shots (Genesis 3).  Evil as a dedicated and impassioned opposition to the will of God among humankind is real.  It lies at the root of every form of human suffering.  Evil’s author is Satan, who is not some red costumed character with horns and a pitchfork, but a very real and potent spiritual force that seeks to destroy human lives in each and every way possible.  John 10:10

Evil Doesn’t Get the Last Word – God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself.  Unwilling to allow evil to have the final say, God came among humanity to redeem us and to reconcile us through His Son, Jesus - thus making a way for us to be forgiven for all our stupidity and sin.  Jesus overcame sin and evil, but the full revelation of His triumph will not be manifested until He reappears in power at the culmination of history.  Until then, we who are part of God’s Kingdom - as Christ’s ambassadors to the world - are committed to furthering that redemptive work among our generation.

We Participate in Jesus’ Victorious Triumph Over Evil Through Faith in Him Alone – Human beings, though capable of doing great good, can never measure up to the standard of holiness and righteousness in God’s being.  We are equally capable of great evil.  In short, we are sinners in need of a Savior – every one of us!  Therefore, we affirm that our favor in God’s eyes comes only through grace (unmerited favor) when we surrender our lives to Jesus’ control & lordship.  It’s through a committed relationship to Jesus whereby we become His active followers and experience God’s saving grace.  1 John 3:1 & 4:9-10

We Outwardly Demonstrate Our New Life in Christ Initially Through Baptism – washing outwardly with water is a demonstration of a much greater spiritual reality as a sign of being made clean and whole by God’s grace.  There’s nothing inherently powerful in the waters of baptism, per se.  The water becomes for us the sign of God’s power at work in us.

  • We baptize believers who can articulate their trusting faith in Jesus as their Lord and Savior
  • We also baptize the young children of parents who have committed themselves to be followers of Jesus as a sign of God’s call on the life of that child and of their inclusion in God’s covenant family.  Even before they’re old enough to respond, we publicly acknowledge that they belong to God and together with their family we pledge to do everything possible to point them to Jesus so that one day they may make the promises of their baptism their very own – placing their own personal faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior.

The forms of baptism (immersion, pouring, sprinkling) are not of paramount importance to us.  What is, however, is that the heart and life of those coming forward to receive this valuable gift be wholly surrendered to Jesus Christ.

We Live Differently as a Result of Our Relationship with Jesus – Because we have been reconciled to God through Christ, we seek to live other than we are naturally inclined; to live more and more like Christ lived.  While this is not an instantaneous transformation, we do believe that it is ongoing and progressive. By God’s grace, we are seeking to be a demonstration of what God originally intended at Creation.  We are trying to live our way into the reality of the Kingdom of God among us.  Matthew 4:17-22.

  • By a strong and steadfast commitment to one another in and through our REFLECT (Small) Groups.
  • By reflecting the truth that in Christ a new creation resulting in a new way of being human has dawned so that our human relationships are transformed.  We, therefore, welcome both women and men into the full spectrum of leadership in Christ’s body as co-equals so as to mirror God’s original intent before human sinfulness distorted His vision for Creation.
  • By exhibiting the fruits of the Spirit in the way we interact with each other.

We Live to Serve Others – We are “saved to serve!”  Experiencing God’s grace in Jesus is  not an end in and of itself – punching our ticket to heaven and forgetting about the rest.  We are here on this earth to serve others in Jesus’ name – just as He humbled Himself and took on the role of a servant.  We seek to serve others regardless of what their background, economic status, or lifestyle may be.

We Seek to Protect the Most Vulnerable Among Us – Affirming that all persons are created in the image of God and are therefore endowed with inestimable worth, we believe that all of life is precious – from conception to death.  We further affirm that followers of Jesus should stand in solidarity with all those who seek to safeguard the life of persons and that we should oppose those practices that seek to usurp the role of a Sovereign God in extinguishing a life according to human designs and timetables.

We Look to the Bible for Guidance as the Ultimate Authority for All Matters of Faith and Practice in Our Life of Following Jesus –  No other or greater source of truth exists for followers of Jesus concerning matters of faith and practice than the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.  As the divinely inspired Word of God penned by human hands, they are the unique and authoritative witness to God’s will for humankind and, as such, are completely trustworthy in understanding how we are to think and live.  The Bible is the highest standard of truth because it witnesses to the self-revelation of God Himself in Jesus Christ as the perfect embodiment of God’s will for humanity.

We Eagerly Anticipate the Reappearing of Jesus at the Climax of History – We believe that the story of Creation is moving toward a climactic end when Jesus will reappear among us as conquering king and victor, who will come to establish fully God’s Kingdom reign here on earth – setting right once again all that is wrong with the world, vanquishing evil completely and finally, and setting up a kingdom of righteousness and justice.  Until then, we will seek to live as His faithful followers between the times as a beautiful reflection of His heart and character.